South African business leaders on Wednesday urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to push through reforms faster to lift the economy and curb investment outflows, as executives and policymakers gathered for a continental economic summit.

Former South African president Jacob Zuma will be questioned at a public inquiry into state graft on Monday, a dramatic fall from grace for a politician who has cast a long shadow over the country’s politics for the past decade.

Early vote tallies suggest South Africa’s ruling ANC party will retain power after an election on Wednesday, but analysts said its share of the vote could fall below 60 percent for the first time since the end of white minority rule.

The election 25 years ago of South Africa's first black president, the late Nelson Mandela, who inspired the struggle against apartheid, was a time of soaring hope that the bruised country would reconcile after decades of discrimination and inequality.